When Graveyards Yawn by August Derleth

As part of the Library Thing 2014 ROOT (Read Your Own Tomes), I've pulled When Graveyards Yawn (originally titled Mr George and Other Odd Persons) by August Derleth off the shelf where it has been sitting unread since 1978.

In his introduction, Derleth says that he wrote the 17 stories in a one month period for the seminal horror pulp, Weird Tales. Although that does not necessarily bode well for the quality of the writing, I have to say the the opening story, Mr George, is really very good. A creepy tale about murderous relatives with designs upon the life of a small child, heir to a fortune, but who reckon without her spectral guardian.

Fingers crossed that the other stories in the collection are as good.

"Mr. George" is one of his five best stories, I think. WHO SHALL I SAY IS CALLING? is a best-of from Battered Silicon Dispatch Box and is a pretty solid collection, but there's a lot of lesser stuff.

"Mr. George" was made into an excellent episode of the TV series Boris Karloff's Thriller.

I liked "Mr George". I'm not far through the collection yet, but finding the stories fairly entertaining. I liked the narrative voice in "The Man on B-17", that of a train driver giving a deposition about mysterious goings on.

I can't recall "...B-17", but it sounds interesting. I'll have to go find that one.

I've finished the book and it was pretty good throughout. Nothing that was likely to win any literary prizes, but a solid set of ghostly and supernatural stories.